Financial incentives in the Sudan

One of the most important challenges in conservation is to make sure that people in local communities are provided with enough economic incentives in tangible and non-tangible forms so as to motivate them to participate in sustainable forest management.⁴³⁸ Approaches based on incentives are expected to reduce forest decline and increase sustainable livelihoods and environmental services. Incentives can be made by providing people with grants and involving them in the greening of the barren and degraded forest lands through forest rehabilitation, afforestation and reforestation.⁴³⁹ Examples of incentives in the Sudan include provision of land and tax exemptions for forest products in addition to tax incentives to enhance development of strategic emerging industries and projects, lowering barriers to foreign direct investment (opening up investment to foreign competition), and consolidation through capital requirement at the minimum.⁴⁴⁰

Financial incentives or disincentives may play important roles in conservation. Article 6 of the investment Encouragement Act 1999, Amended (2007) state in clear terms:

“targets encouragement of investment into such projects, as may achieve the objects of the development policy, and the investment initiatives, on the part of the Sudanese and non-Sudanese private sector, the cooperatives, mixed and public sector. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, it aims at the encouragement of investment into the projects of any of the fields set out in section 7.”⁴⁴¹

Article 7 of the investment Encouragement Act 1999, Amended (2007) spells out the fields of investment: “This Act encourages investment, into the fields of agricultural, animal and industrial activities, energy and mining, transport, communication, tourism and environment, storage, housing, contracting, infrastructure, economic, administrative and consultative services, information

438 Gafaar, Abdalla. Forest Plantations and Woodlots in Sudan. African Forest Forum Working Paper Series, 1(15), 2011: 52. (Gafaar 2011).

439 Knuth, Lidija. Legal and institutional aspects of urban, peri-urban forestry and greening: A working paper for discussion. FAO, 2005: 17 (Knuth 2005).

440 Gafaar 2011:52.

441 Article 6 of the investment Encouragement Act 1999, Amended (2007)

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technology, education, health, water and culture and information services and any such other field, as the Council of Ministers may specify.”

In relation to exemptions from other taxes and fees, Article 12(a) of the investment Encouragement Act 1999, Amended (2007) in clear terms provides that:

“the Minister may grant such strategic and non-strategic projects, as may be specified in the regulations: -

The necessary land for the strategic project free of charge, and at the encouragement price for the non-strategic project, in co-ordination with the bodies concerned, from such lands, as may have been planned by the competent bodies.”⁴⁴²

The foregoing inter alia, allows specifically for strategic and non-strategic industries to enjoy exemption from the business profits tax, the effect of which commences from the date of commercial production, or practice of activity.

A considerable number of initiatives have been undertaken to involve not only the government, but also other stakeholders such as civil society organizations, private sector organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and women's organizations in forestry in matters. The genuine interest in growing trees may be influenced by deeply rooted cultural values and a tradition of caring for trees in home garden systems and agricultural systems, particularly in the gum belt.⁴⁴³ In a study by Gafaar,⁴⁴⁴ several examples of the government’s efforts in facilitating this and instances of participation of civil society in forestry have been cited, and these include the following (a – c):

a) “Provision of seeds/seedlings free of charge to farmers by Forests National Corporation;

b) Provision of extension packages, soft or non-interest loans, and sometimes food support through such schemes as food for work for community woodlots and individual gum orchard stocking through donor assisted projects like those for gum belt rehabilitation and Fuelwood for Energy; and,

c) Agricultural credits include loans provided to mechanized rain-fed farmers⁴⁴⁵ in the clay plains of Eastern and Central Sudan, in cash and in

442 Article 12(a) of the investment Encouragement Act 1999, Amended (2007).

443 Gafaar 2011:43.

444 ibid.: 43.

445 Mechanized rain-fed farming or Mechanized scheme farming describes modern rainfed agriculture using tractors, disc harrows and mechanized harvesters. These farming schemes dominate the southern part of the Gedaref state in the Sudan.

Mechanized scheme farming is done on private schemes and government or state farms.

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kind for seed. The annual celebration of arbour day in the capital city and states, encourage farmers and homesteaders to plant seedlings issued by the government. “⁴⁴⁶

A higher rate of royalty is collected on forest produce from outside the forest reserves⁴⁴⁷ (wood, charcoal or non-wood products from areas destined for agriculture, construction or not constituted as forest reserves). The rationale behind the higher royalty rates is to encourage the concentration of cutting inside the reserves where control is possible, and regeneration is assured. This royalty is levied in accordance with the Royalty Ordinance of 1939,⁴⁴⁸ calculated periodically and granted final approval by the Minister of Finance. This order has been in place since 1939 for collection and payment of royalty fees for forest products produced from forest areas outside the forest reserves. This Order has been put in place as an attempt to prevent people from participating in processes which could result in environmental changes such as cutting trees outside these reserves. In 1989, a new law was enacted by the FNC, which legalized involvement of people as an essential condition in forestry that enhances forest management. It also made provision for private, community and departmental forests.⁴⁴⁹

Due to contrasting views concerning types of property rights between the state and local people groups. Retracing legal developments in the Sudan has indicated the extent to which local people were dispossessed from ancestral lands and the suffering they endured. The legal system imposed by a colonial power (i.e. the received law) is partially reflected in the Constitution of the Sudan⁴⁵⁰ and as far as law does not comply with people’s needs, they do not consider it as binding. When a legal system imposed by a colonial power and

In the Sudan, those farmers working with state planned or traditional farms, practise agriculture on 420 ha -12,600 ha lots of land inside and outside natural forests and forest reserves using tractors. Mechanized scheme farms that are established on government land are not registered in the name of the government based on the law declared in 1970 that all unregistered land is government land. Land-use of this type is thus on leasehold (Glover 2005: 49).

446 Gafaar 2011:43.

447 The Royalties Order 1939, S.4(1)(d).

448 The Royalties Order 1939, S.4(1)(d).

449 Forestry policies, institutions and programmes: Sudan, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Available at:

http://www.fao.org/forestry/country/57479/en/sdn/ Accessed on: 18 February 2014.

450 Government of the Sudan. The Interim National Constitution of the Republic of the Sudan, Government of the Sudan. 2005, Chapter II, paragraph 11(3). (Government of the Sudan 2005).

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legal evolution is external rather than internal, legal institutions are more likely to become much weaker.

3.1.2.8 International initiatives and ageements on the management and